


and the dark sacred night

by Nerdanel (telanaris)



Series: There Is Only Forward [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Begging, Character Conflicted About His Consent, Dirty Talk, Dry Humping, Dry Orgasm, Dry Sex, Elvhen Dirty Talk, F/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Sexuality, Shame, Smangst, Smut, Solas POV, Spirit!Solas, Vaginal Fingering, Voyeurism, age difference of many centuries, god/mortal, self discovery, sub!solas, thigh riding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:00:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28252785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telanaris/pseuds/Nerdanel
Summary: How loud his blood was racing! How his fragile mortal flesh felt—ready to burst, or sing! And he should not feel this way, he did not think he was capable of feeling this way—this wanting—not with her—not in this broken world. This was a risk he could not afford, more volatility added to plans already gone far awry—but then she licked across his mouth, and Solas banished his uncertainties.
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Female Lavellan/Solas, Fen'Harel | Solas/Female Lavellan, Fen'Harel | Solas/Original Female Character(s), Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age), Lavellan/Solas (Dragon Age)
Series: There Is Only Forward [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/652943
Comments: 14
Kudos: 19





	1. Coax

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: If you have read my other fic, 'There is Only Forward,' this fic pics up from the end of Chp. 16 - Perigee. 
> 
> Mind the tags!
> 
> (Please note re: "mildly dubious consent/character conflicted about his consent": there is no coercion/manipulation depicted below, Solas is just a little conflicted about getting his rocks off with a real live girl.)

He combed his hands through her dark hair, pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth, dragged his cracked lips against hers as he whispered:  _ “Ar lath ma vhen’an. _ I am yours.”

Then, pressing into her palm the dried blue flowers that would strengthen the grasp of the Fade around her, Solas crooned to her:

“Come dream with me.”

_ ‘Come dream away with me to that other place where the stubbornness of my unwanted flesh isn’t holding me chained; come away with me to the Sea of Dreams, where I can be enveloped and swept away, storm-tossed by desire for you, not anchored by this cruel and changeless world. Come into sleep with me, away from the others, where we may be free and as loud as we wish—at least, for a little while.’ _

He fell asleep almost as soon as he’d retreated to the tent he shared with Blackwall, only to be left waiting—agitated, pacing—for her to join him in the dreaming. His body felt thinner here, nearly diaphanous, distant and less immediate, a kind of snakeskin he had shed in the tent back in the waking… but no matter how far from it he had come, still Solas was taut with physical desire, unfamiliar and visceral. He awaited her arrival with longing, with impatience, prowling the sea for any sign of her. When she failed to appear, Solas began to fear she had a change of heart, and though it would admittedly be better for both of them in the long run, he could not help the abrupt and alarming pang the thought summoned in his chest.

He was much too old to be so affected by any of this. 

But there—! He knew the moment she drifted to sleep, her consciousness slipping past the Veil. The anchor marked her here, too, and in the Fade, it’s magic—the Orb’s magic,  _ his own  _ magic—called to Solas, more loudly and insistently than it did in the waking. 

And when he met her in the dream it started, as most dreams do, in the middle: by the time he had found her, they were already clasped in each other’s embrace. 

The same waking hunger had followed him here: his hands circled Thanduwen’s waist, drawing her closer to him. She hovered above him where he sat, astride his thigh, dipping her head to chase his mouth, to knock her teeth against his. Even here, where there was nothing but spirit and dream, there was a kind of violent solidness to her, a weight: ´ _ I am here,´  _ her body insisted, ´ _ I am real.´  _ He wanted to feel the landscape of her, each arch and curve, hills and valleys beneath his palms.

How loud his blood was racing! How his fragile mortal flesh felt—ready to burst, or sing! And he should not feel this way, he did not think he was capable of feeling this way—this  _ wanting— _ not with her—not in this broken world. This was a risk he could not afford, more volatility added to plans already gone far awry—but then she licked across his mouth, and Solas banished his uncertainties. 

They were here, now, and all Solas wanted to dream of was the taste and warmth of her kisses, the softness and the strength of her body. His palms followed her hips, around her waist… sinking his grip into her ass, dragging her closer, seating her roughly on his thigh. 

Thanduwen shook against him, tearing from the kiss; a shallow, broken sound slipped past her lips. Alarm moved him to react—Solas lifted her out of his lap, then released her.

“Are you alright?” He raised a hand to caress her cheek; he searched her face, but her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow. “Did I hurt you?”

Her eyes shot open, wide with embarrassment Solas first mistook for surprise. But there was no misreading the reddening in her cheeks. Though there was no blood within them to color them, they flushed all the same when she found Solas’ gaze fixed upon her with concern. How lively she looked! The crimson in her face like the blushing dawn, her chest rising and falling, chasing her breath like the sun chases off the night. 

“No, you didn’t—you haven’t hurt me.” Thanduwen’s tongue slipped past her teeth, re-wet her lips. “The opposite, actually.”

“Oh.” Well that was good, wasn’t it? Although if that were the case, why had she made that whine, like a wounded creature—? 

And then it hit him, _ “Oh!”  _ and it had taken him so long and he is  _ so incredibly thick  _ that Felassan’s face bubbled up in his memory, unbidden, laughing at his expense. At his  _ pride. _ And—by the stars and the seas, he has lived for millennia, and yes, it has been awhile, and never like  _ this _ before—but Solas was so mortified he had mistaken her pleasure for pain he could feel his cheeks coloring rosy, too, matching hers. He was ashamed of his own fumbling; he did not know the steps to this particular dance. Perhaps this whole thing had been a mistake— “Would you like me to stop?”

Thanduwen’s eyes traced from his cheeks down his neck below the collar of his tunic, following the path of his blush. A lopsided smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “No,” she replied, as casually as if they were discussing the weather, as though it were nothing, “I’d rather you didn’t.” 

Then she lowered herself over him, astride his thigh once again—and through their clothes, Solas could feel the faint, wet heat of her, and it took every ounce of his self control to repress the shudder that wanted to rip through him at the thought of seeing her undressed,  _ dripping— _ Thanduwen asked him, her voice insistent, though hardly above a whisper:

“What do  _ you  _ want, Solas?”

Solas, Fen’Harel, Mythal’s Pride and God of Rebellion did not know how to answer. 

What did he want? He wanted to wake up and discover all this world to be no more than a fever dream, never come to pass, a nightmare forgotten upon waking; he wanted to wake in Mythal’s hospital and find Thanduwen at his side—not a figment of his imagination or the consequence of his greatest, most terrible mistake, but perhaps as a healer who had tended to him while he recovered, rested from whatever injury or trauma had put such horrors in his head—her visage dragged over into his fitful night terrors to comfort him even there—but to wake and find her whole,  _ complete, _ unsevered from her full self, and her immortality restored to her… possessed of everything, all the inheritance Solas had stolen from her in his stumbling. 

He wanted to be absolved. He did not want to lose her.

He wanted to take her into his arms and wrap the both of them in magic and enchantments; to love her slowly, as he only could have in Elvhenan; to unfold her tenderly beneath him in a lovemaking that might last weeks, months, years. He wished he had known her ten thousand years ago—and at the same time he was glad he had not, for if he had, there would have been no hiding from her who and what he really was. 

He knew he did not want to turn her away, not after what had happened in the dream of Haven; he did not want to toy with her, or confuse her, not again. He wanted to be resolved; he wanted to give her pleasure. 

But Thanduwen had developed an uncanny ability to bring out the best in him—to temper his hubris—and Solas knew so very little about this kind of intimacy, about her body, about  _ her.  _ He wanted to give her pleasure—wanted to witness and watch her pleasure, drink of it—but he was not sure yet, so new still to her and to this new world, if he could give it to her. 

Thanduwen watched him patiently, a smile still playing about her lips, her eyes heavy-lidded. Solas could feel his cheeks still tingling with heat. Struck with sudden decisiveness he surged upwards, kissing his cheek to her cheek, his mouth to her ear—hiding his face from her as he spoke: 

_ “Thana em.” _ He pressed each word hot and hasty, desperate against the shell of her ear.  _ “Nuvenan thana em i rosas’da’din sule emma’tar’shol.” _

_ ‘Use me. I want you to use me, and cum against my thigh.’ _

She gasped, her breath warm and moist against his neck, rocking her body in delight. Her hair fell around her face and tickled his scalp, his ear, then his neck as Thanduwen dipped her head to sow a row of kisses against his throat. Her hands found his, guiding them back to their former grip on her hips. 

Her voice came dripping words in his ear, sticky-sweet and dark as carmel: 

“Will you help me?”

_ “Yes.” _

The answer came before Solas could help it, half a low groan. He could not say what he wanted from one minute to the next, he did not know what he would or could allow himself—but she had put herself into his hands, and instead of letting go, he squeezed tighter, dragging her along the length of his thigh. She cried out once more—louder the second time than the first, and sweeter—and he felt her body shake as her legs tightened, vice-like, around his. 

Her mouth sought his; if they had been awake, Solas thought, her kiss might have drawn blood. His hands upon her body had unbridled her hunger; she tasted him, licking the back of his teeth as she thrust herself against him, needing only the slightest squeeze of Solas’ hands as encouragement to quicken her pace. 

The color had returned to her face… though Thanduwen did not look the least bit embarrassed now, lost in the throes of her blissful reverie. Sweet summer berry bright in her cheeks, and her breath came in quick little stutters; she was gasping too hard to kiss, pressing onwards as her body coiled tighter and tighter against his. And Solas… Solas could only watch her, open-mouthed, feeling tipsy-dizzy though he hadn’t touched a drop of drink. The friction of her cunt against him was warming his leg, and she was jerking herself against him so sharply, now… his eyes wandered along her throat, the cut of her tunic… he longed to release her waist, to unbutton her blouse until she was spilling out of it, until he could see her breasts heaving and jumping with each of her tight little thrusts—

—no, that was—and why did he want that, anyway? What purpose would it serve? A part of him feared this was all a vain exercise, bound to end, ultimately, in disappointment; he could not love a shadow, he could not love someone he could not  _ love  _ the way he knew how, the ways he knew best. And he had been through all of this once already a long time ago, and the world had only grown more solid and stubborn—and he was much too old to be doing it all over again. 

(What was the saying about old dogs?)

...why, then, did he want to peel back each layer of her clothing, like flower petals, til he had revealed the secret of her skin beneath? And why did he so wish to press his mouth to her throat, to taste the sweat collecting in the notch of her clavicle?

And  _ oh,  _ all the little shakes and convulsions of her thrumming, blood-humming body! And all the pretty little sounds she makes as she fucks herself against him! He is amazed and aghast in equal measure when he feels his own body responding in kind, the swell of his erection trapped in his trousers, against his leg. 

He could not bear it now—it might break him! Break the illusions, certainly—to come together with her for an experience that could only ever be hollow, a pale and faint imitation. Yet here he was, coaxing her to climax in his lap. And Solas could not take his eyes off of her, drinking in every scrunch and slack of her face as she sought her satisfaction. 

Thanduwen could barely look at him: her eyes squeezed shut as she rode the pleasure that he had finally granted her. (Yes, finally. He is old, but he is not blind.) When she did manage to open them she looked only at his face… biting her lip, taunting him into a kiss, moaning against his mouth as her nails scraped lightly over his scalp. His thick, heavy blood sings in his sleeping body; his cock twitches eagerly against constraining cloth. 

Swimming towards her pleasure she sighs his name,  _ “Solas.” _ He has never heard her speak his name that way, soft and plaintive and yearning. “Solas, I’m close…”

Like everything else in this world her pleasure is so candlelight brief: it flickers and burns, sputters then fades, even this—their stolen moment—so heartbeat quick, so fragile. A flash of summer lightning, then gone.

But still,  _ still,  _ though the brevity should grieve him Solas felt something clenching in his gut, leaving him lightheaded.  _ ‘This is nonsense,’  _ he told himself,  _ ‘this is outrageous,’  _ but no language can deny it: his body is alive and alight with unexpected, adolescent pleasure—more carnal desire and satisfaction he’s felt in all his days in this broken world, and far more than he thought he was capable of.

Thanduwen was lost to the feeling, abandoned to it, to him—and the sight of her on the precipice of her climax had awakened something in Solas that thrilled and frightened him in equal measure. His thigh was warm where she thrust herself against him—if they were fucking in the waking, Solas wondered, might he be able to smell her through her clothes by now? The thought sends him reeling.

Riding the ecstasy of her closeness and observing himself in the throes of it, he groaned the words:  _ “Rosa’da’din sule em.” _

_ ‘Cum on me.’ _

The command pulled a high, reedy cry out of her. She squeezed his shoulder, clutching to him; his grip on her ass tightened and he followed the frantic pace of her thrusting, each rock growing shallower, more acute—and was he imagining it, or had she soaked through her clothes, the fabric of his trousers damp underneath her heat?

_ “Solas—!” _

His name was a tight sound, throttled in her chest. Thanduwen shook against him—and then she was gasping for breath, her mouth a wide gash, his name a plucked refrain, her pink tongue sweeping obscenely around it:  _ “Solas! Solas!” _ jerking in his lap as her pleasure thundered through her. 

...this: the sight of her, losing herself over to pleasure’s oblivion in his lap… Solas felt his own breathing unsteady, losing its rhythm; he could feel his sleeping body clenching just at the sight of her, the ecstasy writ plain across her face calling his flesh to wake, to play, to find her and join her. To feel her shake and clench and come undone around him, sheathed within her.

He did not understand it. He certainly should not have indulged it. In the year and a half since he had woke he had felt nothing as intense as this; all else paled in comparison. This thing he had opened the doors to between them was dangerous, reckless, unbelievably foolhardy. Potentially disruptive to plans Solas had laid with great care—plans which, he reminded himself, Thanduwen might yet play an essential part, long after the work of the Inquisition was done. 

And yet….

When she was finished, Thanduwen settled against him, burying her face in the crook of his neck; though it shamed him, Solas felt himself thankful for the privacy it afforded him. He did not know what to say, how to look at her. He did not know how to contend with his own arousal, afraid if he saw it through to its finish everything would simply end the way it always did, and all the illusions would be shattered—and then, in his bitterness, what mistakes would he open himself to?

His breath caught—she had shifted and her thigh had found him out, still pressing insistently against the seam of his pants. He felt, by the way her chest vibrated against his, rather than heard the low purr of approval she made at her discovery. His cheeks flushed. Her slender, nimble fingers danced over his abdomen, ghosting the heel of her palm over the tension in his pants. 

Panic seized him. She had asked him,  _ ‘what do  _ you  _ want?’ _ and he had not had an answer; he wanted—he could not fathom it, could not explain it, half-hated himself for it—he wanted her to touch him. To unfasten his trousers and wrap her hand around him—or not, to simply rub him through the cloth and whisper filthy promises and praise to him until he was lurching beneath her and staining the fabric. 

He wanted  _ her _ . 

But he knew himself. Knew the fragile state he was in, and he did not think he could bear to have her. Knew, in any case, this was not something to proceed with unless he had absolute conviction—he was already responsible for enough upheaval in her life. 

His hand darted to grasp hers, lifting it from Solas’ lap so that he could press a warm, lingering kiss to the veins of her wrist. 

“Thank you,” he told her, with emphatic gentleness, “but I am more than sated for the evening, I think.”

She pulled herself out of his neck to look at him in puzzlement. “Are you sure?”

“Quite.”

Her gaze lingered, as though she still did not quite believe it. “Alright,” she managed finally, then settled meekly—almost hesitantly—against him, as if she were afraid he might push her away. 

The temptation was there. He was confused (though he would not admit it to himself,  _ frightened _ ) and he longed for privacy, for space to think. But he had seen the hurt that had flickered across her face, though she had tried to hide it; she wanted to please him, too. She would respect the line he has drawn, but she did not understand it. Solas wrapped his arms around her, drawing her near, and she took a long breath and settled, some of the tension going out of her body. 

And he wished he was awake: he wished he could smell more keenly the scent of her hair, feel the homely texture of her tunic as he ran his hands over her back. How he longed for her! Without understanding fully how or why, or what to do with the wanting. It was like the old days all over again when he had first pressed himself into a body, trapped as a boy-child at Mythal’s heel—clumsy, inarticulate—and the wild, wheeling, headstrong adolescence that had followed. It had taken him so long to adjust to his bones, his skin… it had changed him in ways he bitterly regretted. Whatever transmutations or transformations he had undergone to survive in the world of the Evanuris, he was certain he could not do it again. 

… and yet he couldn't help but wonder if the dreadful change had already come. Thanduwen breathed against his neck. Her fingers idly traced the stitches around his shirt collar, and at her gentle touch, he felt his heartbeat slow. 

  
  



	2. spread

After that night, as though he had cursed himself—brought the fear down upon himself by daring to acknowledge it—it was just like the old days all over again: his first clumsy steps in a body of flesh and bone, and the red-hot arrogance of his adolescence, when he presumed he had mastered that self-same body. 

By all logic and reason this infatuation (he could not bring himself to call it  _ ‘lust,’  _ desire) should have no power over him. He knows what passes for intimacy these days in the Waking; he had participated in the act himself once, out of a perverse and grieved curiosity. He had found the experience positively vulgar. 

_ ‘Here,’ _ he had thought to himself after, as she dressed herself, his disgust clinging to his body like a coat of grime, like the sweat and the stench of her,  _ ‘is the rutting of animals.’  _ The act had none of the complexity and the beauty (never mind the pleasure) that it formerly possessed before the Dreaming was severed. It was vile. When it was over, Solas felt as though he had debased himself by it. 

Real, genuine connection: another thing he had stolen from this world. Another brilliant flame snuffed out, another sin to add to his pile. It had been enough to cure him of his curiosity, that was certain. Let the people of this world heave and thrust and push against each other for all the pleasure it gave them, but he wanted no further part of it. 

...why, then, did his blood so race when Thanduwen kissed him?

She had brought herself off on him in his lap and he had been torn the whole time between titillation and terror. _ ‘She is a shade,’  _ Solas told himself,  _ ‘she is only an echo.’ _ But he had lost faith in that lie long ago, when he had waited up for her, facing the rock cleft in the Vir Vian—willing her to appear there despite the odds, like a hero out of legend. 

(And then, of course, she had: made her way, through the tempest of snow and ice, up the mountain.)

But still, still—it is one thing to recognize her personhood and another thing to  _ want  _ her. What could he possibly hope to gain from it, other than heartbreak?

(And pleasure. There had been pleasure, too, though acknowledging that fact is hardest: that she had hardly touched him and he had felt his body come alight, long for more touch, more friction.)

These feelings, these emotions—they were like a maelstrom, just like that blizzard the night Haven was destroyed: whipping at him, thrashing him. They are new and he is raw before them, without defense against them. It is like he is a boy again in Mythal’s court: clumsy and inarticulate, thousands of years old and three feet tall, trapped in a world he did not understand. Every thing frightening, and new, and exhilarating. 

And the gall of him, really! Taking a body—that had been his choice, despite the circumstances. Yes, he had chosen it, knowing everything he did. But Thanduwen did not know the half of it: she had no idea the kind of story she was living in, the tapestry weaving itself around her, trapping her. What a trespass it has been, to kiss her in Haven! Her God of  _ Betrayal.  _ What advantage he took! What madness compelled him?

… he had been so, so lonely, and so homesick. When he had first met Thanduwen in the dungeon beneath the Chantry he might have killed her in her sleep, if he had seen a way to remove the anchor and take it for himself. And lo! Then she had woken, and the closer he grew to her the more ashamed he felt to have ever considered such a course of action. This world was full of sorrow and lost marvels, but she was radiant. She lingered with him and laughed with him, spoke to him kindly and respectfully (but not deferentially); she coaxed him into his best self, a close ghost of what and who he used to be, when he had been boundless and ever-changing and vast.

  
  
  


The next day, on the road to the Western Approach, it snowed. 

By necessity, the pace of their travel slowed. They had left the Imperial Highway behind in Val Firmin, and now travelled on less-common roads, some of them grown over and poorly maintained. The snow covered just enough of the ground to make it tricky to see the road beneath, and they slowed the horses to a walk as they navigated through a treacherous section of their path. 

Normally, this would have been a welcome change from the relentless pace they’d been keeping. Walking the horses meant Solas and Thanduwen could ride alongside one another, and pass the day in pleasant conversation. Indeed, up ahead, he could see Thanduwen holding her reins, waiting for Solas to catch up with her, a smile of welcome on her face. 

It was good they rode side by side; it was difficult to look at her. In fact it was embarrassingly difficult to even converse with her after what had transpired in the Fade the night before. The cold had stung her cheeks a lovely rose, flushed them just like they had been flushed with exertion the night before as she gasped and shook against him—

_ ‘Stop it,’ _ he commanded himself, redirecting his attention to the conversation. She was talking to him about the keystones, the artifacts that were illuminated by the ocularum, and reviewing their hypotheses on what purpose they might serve, and who had placed them. 

But in the periphery of his vision his eyes were drawn to her swaying hips, how easy she sat in the saddle and followed her mounts’ gait—and he could hear her sweet pleasure sounds as freshly as if she’d just loosed them, and he watched her hands on the reins and remembered them clutching at his clothes, and he felt his neck warm and his pulse quicken. 

“Solas? Are you alright?”

Thanduwen was concerned, nearly leaning out of the saddle to get a better look at him. He offered her a smile, made his voice apologetic. 

“I’m alright,  _ lethallin _ .  _ Ir abelas,  _ I am sorry my attention was wandering.”

He did not trust himself, then. The wanting was driving him to such distraction; better not to feed it, to smother it to ash. But that night, after the tents had been pitched and the meager cold supper had been served, she had asked him,

“Will you come to me again tonight?”

And he should have refused her, but his breath caught just to look at her—the silver shine of the waning moon in her hair, the glow of its light on the fresh fallen snow—and instead, he told her,  _ “Yes.” _

  
  
  


_ “Up on the desk.” _

He guided her hips with his hands, back towards the desk; she hopped up onto it, careless of the books and parchment and carefully organized notes beneath her, then parted her legs and pulled Solas between them, crushing their mouths together. 

The rotunda was as quiet as it only could be in the Fade: no faint flutter of books in the library, no murmured conversation, no cries from Leliana’s ravens. Each wet mouth sound and hissed shift of cloth magnified in that barreled chamber, each click of teeth and smack of lips like the sound was pressing itself right against Solas’ eardrums, reminding him what a moist mess bodies made—of all those things that had first repulsed him. 

But he did not care. Not now, not with Thanduwen’s thighs clasped lightly around his waist, her hands squeezing his shoulders, drawing him against her; not with her lips parting for his tongue. Not with the sweet taste of her filling his mouth and spinning his head, his fingers sinking into her dark hair. 

Thanduwen tucked her face beneath his jaw. Her teeth nipped lightly along the column of his throat, and Solas felt his breath tighten, shallowing. Her nails raked over his scalp, down the back of his neck; she bit harder, hard enough to bruise had they been fully in their bodies; her hand slipped beneath his tunic, and he felt her palm on his naked waist, and every muscle in his core and his thighs contracted at once at the unexpected contact. He gasped. 

He should have stopped her then; she took this as encouragement. Her warm palm, callused from wielding her staff, climbed higher, tickling his ribs… he felt a heat sinking through him, pooling pleasantly in his gut and making him light-headed. Her lips against his throat were gentle, tender. 

His whole body shuddered. He reached beneath his shirt and clasped his hand around Thanduwen’s wrist, stilling it. 

He had to deny her—he must. He was not ready to know what would happen if he gave himself to her. He had thought what scraps remained of intimacy were hardly more than sour dregs. He could not truthfully say whether he wanted to be proven right or wrong. 

He had to deny her, at least, for now. But if he must, let him be generous. 

He lifted her hand to his face, pressed her wrist to his mouth, felt her blood rushing beneath her skin. “May I undress you?” he asked, looking up at her as his lips pressed the words into the skin of her wrist like seeds into fertile earth. “I would like to touch you.”

Thanduwen tilted her head at him mischievously, a twinkle in her eye. She fanned her hand over the mess of papers strewn over the desk. “What, and risk sweating or worse on top of all this research?”

Solas’ brow furrowed. He tried to explain. “We are dreaming. It isn’t—“

She laughed, quick and bright. “I know, Solas. I was just teasing. Yes,” she said, her mirth thickening into something carmel,  _ “vin. Sathan, reas ara julathe.” _

_ ‘Please, undress me.’ _

That same, unbidden and unfamiliar warmth licked his insides, flooded his ears with the sound of his own pounding blood. 

_ “Ma nuvenin,” _ Solas said,  _ ‘as you wish,’  _ as his hand lowered and his fingers plucked at the laces of her breeches. 

She watched him while he worked, untying the knot, loosening the leather cord. The heat of her gaze was scorching. And as soon as he had pulled the waistband loose she kissed him again, slowly, warmly. He lifted his hands to frame her face, closing his eyes, falling into her again… beneath him she shifted, wiggled, and when he looked down she had already managed to pull her trousers half down her waist. He saw, just below the line of her smalls, the palest cream of her upper thigh. 

His fingers grasped the hem of her trousers, working them down her legs. They still carried the phantom warmth of her body, but this only made his palms itch for her more. Her pants caught on her ankles; she laughed at the look on his face—his frustration must have shown as he worked them free—but then…

Then, he saw her, sitting on  _ his _ desk: her strong, naked legs dangling over the edge. Thanduwen was no longer laughing. She kept his gaze, assertive, confident… but her knees drew together almost coyly, her toes pushing on top of the bridge of her opposite foot. 

He did not know what impulse drove him, but he gave himself over to it; he should have asked her first, he should have told her everything about who and what he really was, that he was the source of all her burden and torment—but instead he was cupping his palm around the naked heel of her foot, and lifting it, smoothing his other hand along the back of her calf as he pressed a kiss to the notch on the inside of her ankle. Then higher: his mouth climbed up her leg, along the sinew and curve of her calf, to the sensitive skin at the fold of her knee. She went very still beneath him, but her leg trembled beneath his lips, more noticeably the higher he ascended. 

He wanted to make her tremble. He wanted to make her shake. 

_ (To shake, in turn, beneath her—!) _

When he was halfway up her thigh, his eyes closed in reverence, her fingers fisted in his tunic and drew him upwards; she collided with him. She kissed him and drew him near until he could feel her pressing against him. And her kiss was hungrier now—sloppier—and her hands slid over his chest, his ribs, though kept themselves quite neatly outside his clothes, acquiescing to his unspoken request. Solas pulled his breath in through his nose. 

When his hands found her waist and the hem of her smalls, she planted her palm behind her and lifted her hips off the desk just enough—tacit permission. Before he had the good sense to second-guess what he had started, Solas hooked his thumb into her waistband and pulled her smalls down, past her hips, her knees, her ankles. 

Thick black hair curled at the crux of her legs, drawing his eye downward. 

It was not as if he had never looked upon a naked lover before, but he had never looked at them  _ like this _ , knowing that what was seen—what was physical, present—was as much as could be known, as could be given. That sex, to her, through no fault of her own and entirely through his, was nothing more than penetration and friction. 

And yet, he looked upon her now—this woman who he had once written off as a shade, a wisp, a ruin—her legs opened under his attention; and there, nestled among the soft dark curls of her, the folds of her sex were pink, swollen… glistening, already smeared with her own slick and shining invitingly in the light of the rotunda. 

Solas felt his mouth go dry at once, his head cottony and stupid. 

He wanted nothing more than to bow between her knees and drink of her. 

His hand came to rest—gently, gently—atop her thigh, and his gaze shifted between her sex and her face as his fingers traced up her leg—watching for reaction, but she only watched him, open mouthed, lips red and plump from too much kissing. Solas swallowed. When his fingers were approaching the cut of her thigh he dipped his thumb between her legs. He pulled at the flesh, pulling her lips just apart; his eyes widened as he watched her wetness trickle out of her, spilling along her sex and dripping down between her cheeks. 

Thanduwen has hardly moved; she hardly breathed. Her stomach made only the slightest movements as she watched him. But when his thumb released her and he traced his fingertips instead along the inside of her thigh, the muscles of her leg jumped beneath the light rasp of his nails—how delightful, how heady to know his touch had affected her so!—he brushed his fingers along the line of her hair, over her mound and between her legs, and Thanduwen sucked her breath between her teeth, and pushed her hips closer to the edge of the table. 

He wished she could angle her hips higher—he wanted to watch her, wanted to see her sex swell and redden and twitch under his hands (if it was not an act of hubris to assume he could please her at all, given how long it had been since he had done anything of the kind.) Instead he leaned forwards, pressing a kiss to her neck then nipping affectionately, before drawing his chair to the table and settling into it. Thanduwen watched him without comment, eyes lidded… lifted her right foot, perched the ball and toes on the edge of his armrest. 

His hands climbed her legs. He slipped his finger just between the folds of flesh; he painted the already swollen red lips of her sex with her honey, which he had collected on his finger, and Thanduwen made that sound again, like the one she had the night before when Solas had brought her down into his lap—when her pleasure came on fast, tipped her over and surprised her. Solas watched her like the glimmer of a mirage on the horizon, the pad of his thumb dragging moist spirals over her lips, stretching her pleasure sound into a high keen. His other hand clutched the meat of her thigh, as if by doing so he could hold himself back, in check. __

_ ‘How wet she is already!’ _

But Solas wanted to know her—to  _ learn  _ her, what it would take to please her—he wanted to take his time. 

Gently his finger glided between her lips, never quite dipping low enough to brush her budding pleasure, kept hidden between the soft folds of flesh. He watched her sex blush and swell under his touch—he drank in every pleasured twitch of her lips. His blood was racing, pulse roaring in his ears; his thumb dipped lower, searching, and he pressed into her.

She gasped—in surprise or pleasure, he wondered? Or both?—at the sudden intrusion, but in the next breath she moaned, ragged and unsteady, and Solas moaned with her, a low and helpless sound: 

Her cunt was soft. So soft, silken, wet—and it tightened around him, squeezing his thumb as if trying to draw him further within her. Perhaps not so different from any other body when caressed and stroked—perhaps not unlike other lover he has lain with—but never before had the physical element of sex so enticed him, the mechanics of it. Like most things to do with his body, these things had been unfortunate necessities to be tolerated, not celebrated, and in the past he had paid little mind to any and all elements of intercourse beyond the cerebral.

Now…! Now the sight and the feel of her body swept all else from his mind, and he was filled with little else but the compulsion to drink from her: to seal his mouth around her and tongue along the silken walls of her cunt, to lap at her until she wept from pleasure.

But—he reminded himself—not, perhaps, tonight. Tonight he wanted to watch her. Tonight he wanted to learn.

He drew his thumb out of her, then pushed it back in.

She cried out again—and there it goes, the impulse to devour her, slapped away like being struck by a forceful wave—all Solas wanted instead was to keep pulling those sounds out of her. The pad of his thumb drew in and out of her like a bow along a string, and produced such music from her mouth. Above him she was panting, gasping for breath—he might pity her if he were not so flushed with his own success, his ability (he could hardly believe it) to keep drawing her nearer and nearer to ecstasy. He fucked her with his thumb gently, shallowly. He gathered her with his free arm, swept it around her waist and guided her nearer to the table’s edge and, when she was close enough, leaned into her core and kissed her stomach. He traced a row of little bites along her abdomen as he licked his way up towards her breast—he pulled his thumb fully out of her and swept it upwards, found her swollen clit and circled it, slow and firm.

Her whole body leapt—or tried to; his arm holds her waist too securely—away from him first, then back towards his touch just as quickly. Her breath came unsteadily, losing its rhythm. 

Solas grew lightheaded. Without ceasing his determined circling, he left one last love bite on her stomach then eased back into his chair, unsnaking his arm from her waist where he had held her in place. He placed it on her thigh, parting her legs—wider than the width of the chair, lifting her feet off the armrests—until the folds of her outer lips pulled apart and he could see the petals of her sex all opened before him, all delicious and inviting, slick crimson heat.

He saw the bud of her sex, it’s hood pulled back, engorged and glistening. 

He drew his middle and ring finger along the length of her seam, collecting her wetness upon his fingertips, then trapped and rolled her clit between them.

Her back snapped, curved and taught, and then she shook—did not tremble, it was too violent a movement to call it trembling, no, her whole body  _ shook _ —and cried out his name so that it echoed and redoubled in the rotunda around them.

“Solas! Oh, gods, Solas!”

Her sex throbbed the way his dick leaps before it spills (and how it aches now, trapped, straining against his trousers) but Solas did not want it to end.

“I’m close!” she encouraged him, too breathless to shout, but spoken with urgency. “I’m close, Solas, don’t stop—!”

So he doesn’t stop.

He slows.

“Ah—! Hhhhha, Solas,  _ sathan…” _

Her sharp, staccato cries were drawn out into plaintive pants and wails, Thanduwen bit her lower lip. Her face flushed pink, shining wet. “Solas, Solas…” she repeated his name, but he did not stop the pressure—agonizingly slow, but relentless just the same—of his fingers upon her, drawing up along her then back down again, and her clit was so buttery soft and his fingers so slick there was hardly any friction to the gesture at all.

Her hand found his tunic, twisting the fabric into her fist. All of her abdomen was shuddering now, little ripples of clenched and unclenched muscle—her legs were shaking. Her cunt leaking. And she curled around herself, bowed her neck and spine so low that her forehead nearly kissed against his, sitting beneath her, caught between her legs. 

“Please, Solas.” Her plea was hardly more than a whisper, but still, he is close enough to hear. “ _ Sathan,  _ please…”

“‘Please,’ what?” he asked her, pitching his words in a low, intimate rumble. “Tell me what it is that you want from me.”

“Let me cum,” she begged of him, her words hardly more than a hiss, her body wound so tight around the ceaseless ministrations of his hand—he drew his fingers even slower, idle— “please, Solas, get me off.”

“Are you sure?”

The words were out of his mouth before he could second-guess them. His tone all playful and rich and dark. It is like remembering a forgotten language, talking like this. The give and take. That, at least, was familiar to him.

“Are you sure you would not prefer to hold off a little longer, so that I might draw my tongue along your lips, drink of you and suck your bud until you are screaming?”

She whispered something to herself—Solas could not quite make it out—but he could pick out the strain in the sound. Her body began to shake harder, a cry building in her throat.

“Solas—! Solas, I’m— _ ahh!” _

He did not need any more encouragement than that. He liked to tease, yes, but he liked to reward, too. He remembered that about himself.

He quickened the pace of his fingers, curling and uncurling, rolling his calloused fingertips mercilessly over her—her hips were so unsteady he could barely manage, they kept chasing his touch, thrusting against him—and she fell over into her ending, shouting his name. The legs of his desk clattered underneath her body as she gasped and thrashed in her final pleasure-throes.

When she was finished—when she finally settled—Solas saw the desk beneath her was damp from her slick, and the ink of his notes had bled and smeared blue across the back of her cream-colored thighs.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hi everyone! So I was really hoping to publish another chapter of TIOF before the end of the year, but life has been kind of A Lot lately, which has made it difficult to focus. Instead I'm posting this! I'm thinking of this as a companion fic to TIOF. The chapters will not be as long, and I'm going to try not to stress out too much about whether things are "canon"" or not. 
> 
> As a result, if you are reading this alongside TIOF, please keep in mind it's possible that not everything contained in this fic will end up canon for TIOF. TIOF is a work in progress; I'm mostly using this fic so I can maintain my writing practice even if I feel I'm not 100% ready to tackle the next TIOF chapter yet. That way I don't fall out of the habit and/or lose my momentum as life takes its sweet time calming down. :)
> 
> A NOTE ON TAGS:  
> I have never read, and don't really write, dub!con, so I'm not even sure if that's the appropriate tag to use here? I honestly could not think of any other tag to use to describe the kind of internal conflict he's dealing with even while he's actively participating (and getting pleasure and arousal from) the sexual contact. I'm happy to add additional tags upon recommendation, I don't want anyone to stumble upon this fic who would be hurt by reading it because it wasn't properly tagged. 
> 
> But yeah, also, this is basically as dub!con as the fic is going to get.


End file.
